Edward Cahill - The Pocket Paderewski - First Draft of my biography of the artist is now complete

Edward Cahill retired to Monte-Carlo in 1961. This view of the port is from the The Trophy of Augustus at the village of La Turbie 2010

I have not been idle and simply driving classic cars around the summer countryside and living a generally hedonistic and sybaritic lifestyle. I do work but not all day!There are many postings on this blog over a number of years concerning the progress of the biography of Edward Cahill. For the few people who may be interested in my progress in putting together the vast jigsaw that is the life of my great-uncle the Australian concert pianist, I chilled the first bottle of champagne in preparation to celebrate the completion of the final Chapter 20. This has now been drunk to celebrate my completion of the first draft of this monumental task which has taken me almost 6 years labour so far. I have now dealt with his retirement to Monte-Carlo in 1961 and the early 1970s just before he was cruelly cut down by a stroke, condemned to repeat endlessly and fatalistically (for those of a metaphysical frame of mind) 'I know, I know, I know, I know...' He died on 11 February 1975.

17 Chapters of the projected 20 Chapters have so far been edited by the gifted George Miller, the editor of my still successfully selling literary travel book entitled A Country in the Moon: Travels in Search of the Heart of Poland (Granta, London 2008).He is now working in a freelance capacity but he knows my writing and weaknesses all too well which is a boon!

I am eternally grateful to the Australia Council without whose financialassistance in the form of a generous competitive literary grant has made this great journey of discovery possible. The world of publishing is in a state of extreme transition at present. Risk taking or innovation is not on the agenda of most publishers. Now my attempt to cross the Gobi Desert of literary agents and publication looms.

Extracts from

The Pocket Paderewski : The Exotic Life of the Concert Pianist Edward Cahill

Chapter 20 Embracing Death in the Fairy Kingdom (extracts)

Place du Casino Monte-Carlo 2010

‘Have you had your ampoule,
Eddie?’ asked Mrs. Sieger in a tone accustomed to command.

Her jet hair and impassive
features under heavy makeup gave her the appearance of a Kabuki theatre mask
although she was of aristocratic Swiss extraction. She chose a glass phial from
the row in front of her plate, worked industriously at the neck with the tiny
saw, snapped off the top and poured the yellow contents into a bowl of what
appeared to be porridge. She stirred and began to eat with evident
satisfaction.

‘Just about to, my dear,’ replied
the diminutive figure of Eddie with his shock of white hair and heavy black
spectacles.

The swirling colours of the
contents of his various ampoules blended together. Seated next to Eddie her husband Arthur was
way ahead of the rest of the diners in ampoule-snapping terms, no doubt a result
of his German efficiency in matters of therapy. An Coloured South African maid
named Sybil stood idly by, waiting for orders. The bleached blonde Monégasque
maid Madeleine glared at her furtively in apparent rivalry. The bizarre,
brittle sound of the ampoule saws at work filled the dining room. I gazed down
over the succulents and cacti of the Le
Jardin Exotique de Monaco and the glittering Mediterranean Sea. The
‘dinner’ in the bowl that lay before me filled me with horror.

‘Are you not hungry, Michel?’

‘Well actually, I’d prefer some
meat.’

‘Meat?’ A look of alarm passed
over their faces.

‘But we have half a ton of Complan health porridge in the garage!’
shot out Mr. Sieger, horrified at the potential waste. His angular frame
twitched.[1]

‘Well… perhaps some fish. We are
on the French Riviera!’ I replied over-enthusiastically.

Eddie seemed embarrassed by his
nephew’s faux pas.

‘We’ll arrange to take you down
to the village in the morning in the Bentley. We should be able to obtain some
veal that has been weaned on milk. You cannot be too careful.’

Sybil brought me some bread and
butter and an apple. It was clear hypochondria ruled the household.

‘It’s time for my preacher!’
Helen suddenly cried.

Eddie looked at me and rolled his
eyes. She maintained close connections with the Seventh Day Adventist Church
and never missed a broadcast. A radio blared the wisdom of choosing the hard
rather than the soft road to enlightenment.

[1]Complan,a Glaxo product,was known as ‘the complete
planned food’ with 23 vital ingredients designed for ‘Problem Eaters’ and
‘Those Too Ill to Eat’. It could be mixed with milk as a health drink or eaten
as a ‘porridge’ depending on preference.

An advertisement for Complan from the 1960s

His patrons the Siegers and
my great-uncle lived in four interconnecting apartments. We ate in the ‘Eating
Apartment’ as ‘one cannot have cooking smells where one lives’. The fact that
no cooking of any consequence took place there was irrelevant. We would leave
the table after these geriatric meals of Complan
and heave our way to the ‘Music Apartment’ where Eddie lived. The sun was
setting the first day I saw it which gave the interior the romantic burnish of
another age.

He had decorated
Drawing Room with many of the gifts he had been given over the years from
admiring music-lovers since the disastrous house fire in Beenleigh in 1930 when in one terrible
evening all his priceless possessions to that date had been destroyed. Silver
candelabra adorned his dining table while a nineteenth century Famille Chinese fish bowl decorated with
figures of dancers and musicians reposed inscrutably in one corner. A marine
painting by the seventeenth century Flemish Baroque painter Bonaventura Peeters
in its original carved oak frame, speckled with worm holes, hung on a wall together
with classical Italian landscapes. Arabian camel cloths and Caucasian rugs were
scattered across the parquet together with a few carefully selected Louis
Quinze armchairs. Pride of place was naturally given to the mahogany-cased Blüthner
grand piano. Gazing over theMediterranean
from this high enchanted place I was reminded of the last line of the poem L’Azure by Stephane Mallarmé ‘I am
haunted: The Blue! The Blue! The Blue! The Blue!’[1]

Still
meticulously dressed by Savile Row and Jermyn Street, Eddie’s sensitive
small-boned features and platinum blonde hair was swept back in ‘waves of
inspiration’ that had made him the darling of the Mayfair salons in the 1920s.

He began his recital that evening with a Chopin mazurka, while Sybil fretted
with cups of camomile tea. His passion and approach to the music of Chopin
betrayed a neurasthenic disposition and that particular quality of irritabilité nerveuse that permeates the
music of the Polish composer. He
emphasised the intimate folk character and rhythm of the mazurka with great
sensibility, dwelling on the ‘grotesque’ rhythmic elements that make Chopin one
of the most innovative of composers. In his interpretation he spoke to us often
of the influence of the pianist of genius Ignaz Friedman whom he had once heard
play Chopin mazurkas ‘in unsurpassed
fashion’ in Vienna. This great Polish artist
was also greatly influenced by his teacher Theodore Leschetizky.

View from the balcony ofCahill's apartment La Bermuda over the Jardin Exotique, Port de Fontvielle at Monte Carlo and the Mediterranean in 1962

The Siegers fell
asleep almost immediately the music began, the long figure of Arthur splayed
like a recumbent praying mantis and Helen collapsed like an abandoned
marionette. I noticed with alarm she had ‘annexes’ constructed on her shoes to
incorporate her large bunions. Eddie launched into the opening bars of the
Chopin ‘Revolutionary’ Étude, the
final study from the passionate Op.10 set.

The Siegers
lurched awake as a fantastically distorted sound like a cry of despair screamed
from the instrument. This was not the result of the anguished music or a protest at the failing powers of the pianist however. The instrument seemed to be jinxed.
It had been left off the inventory when they departed South Africa in 1961
which caused endless difficulties with the customs office. The removalists had
dropped the piano whilst unloading it off the back of the truck at their Monaco
apartments and cracked the soundboard after surviving the long voyage from
South Africa. Ever since, the Blüthner had emitted cries of distress under
pressure in the upper registers, although the rest of the instrument remained
perfectly normal.

The rich sound was as unctuous as old port until the fatal
crack was passed, then a terrifying cacophony rent the air. It had never been
repaired. The evening tableau vivant or
rather tableau de mort had becomea grotesque parody of Eddie’s days of
dazzling renown. I felt a mixture of sadness and embarrassment. Three elderly
people imprisoned in a Monaco eyrie desperately dealing with various
degenerative illnesses, Eddie the least afflicted maintaining the order of their
lives arranging sanatoria in Switzerland.

A nineteenth century building in 'Old' Monte-Carlo before modern rapacious developments

* * * * * *

My first visit
to Monaco was in 1962 in my early teens not long after Eddie’s own arrival. The
Siegers had bought their four apartments in 1961 in one of the first high-rise residential
blocks known as Le Bermuda situated at
49 Avenue Hector Otto a little way below the Moyenne Corniche but above the Jardin
Exotique and Monaco Ville. The
views over the Port de Fontvielle were
spectacular. The absence of income tax attracted them to Monaco but they also came
for the warm Mediterranean climate and pleasant old world atmosphere of retirees.[1]

They stayed initially in August 1961 at the Hotel
Balmoral, a fashionable belle époque construction
dating from 1896 with superb views over Port Hercule.[2]A Dutchman of their acquaintance
commented ‘You people taking flats in Monaco are the bravest people and ought
to get medals for courage!’ Eddie did not accompany them until his beloved
‘Noni’ died in Somerset West in November. He could not leave her while she was
ill but now she was gone he felt lonely. Helen wrote to him in December 1961
from Monte-Carlo ‘Arthur is full of pep and I feel 100! So let us thank our
dear Lord for all his manifold blessings.’ After a great deal of thought he
decided to join them in Monaco and took passage on the luxurious Pendennis Castle arriving in Southampton
early in 1962. He then boarded the familiar but now nationalised and significantly
less glamorous Le Train Bleu to Nice
and then on to Monte-Carlo.

I remember
scarcely anything of my first visit in the spring accompanied by my parents. I
was only fourteen with no conception of the true musical status of my elderly
relative. My father was attached to the Australian Embassy in Rome and seconded
to FAO and WHO at the United Nations as a Medical Officer. We lived in a vast
apartment in Monte Mario whose terrace opened onto a superb panorama of the
ancient city that lay invitingly at our feet. I was often preoccupied with my examinations
at St. George’s English School in Parioli, the most elegant residential address
in Rome located near the Villa Borghese. The Headmaster was famous for his
fencing skills, able to put out a candle flame ‘on the lunge’. I particularly
loved visiting the nearby catacombs, the Coliseum and strolling along the
Appian Way to the tomb of Cecilia Metella.[3]
The immense historical adventure of living in Italy was one of the greatest formative
experiences of my life. Music and the piano were not yet a defining part of it.

On my first visit
to Monaco I vividly remember only our staying at the then slightly down-at -heel
Hotel de Paris, walking with Eddie in
the Jardin Exotique and driving in our
car, a bronze Mk II Jaguar, in which we were touring France. My father examined
these three geriatrics and was horrified at the exotic treatments being meted
out to them regardless of expense by the medical fraternity of the Principality.
We wandered in the gardens and took tea on the balcony. The responsibility of
his two aged patrons enjoying constant ill health hung over Eddie like a
suffocating miasma. This household was a bizarre spectacle for a young boy. Three
elderly folk struggling to keep each other alive high above Monaco harbour.

[1] In 1961 the official population of Monaco was 22,812. By 2013 it had grown officially to 30,500 which is significant in a country whose area is a mere 2 sq km. The age of over a quarter of the population has remained constant over the years at 65 years and older. However other demographic changes and infrastructure development verges on the dramatic. The official language is French but English, Italian and Monégasque are spoken. (Statistics from NationMaster)

[2] The hotel has recently been redeveloped into the Résidence Balmoral one of the most glamorous contemporary addresses in Monaco.

[3] A Roman noblewoman of the 1st century BC whose father was Quintus Caecilius Metellus, Consul in 69 BC. Between 68 and 65 BC he conquered Crete. Her husband was probably Marcus Licinius Crassus, who distinguished himself among Caesar’s entourage on the campaign in Gaul. He was the son of the celebrated Crassus, member of the First Triumvirate along with Caesar and Pompey.

Edward Cahill serving afternoon tea on the balcony of his apartment Le Bermuda in Monaco in 1962 aged 77. He died in Monaco in 1975 at the age of 90.

The Monaco Cemetery

I walked in the blistering heat that afternoon to the grave
itself, now empty. Prince Rainier allocated a special part of the cemetery
called Jacaranda for the poor residents of Monaco who could
not afford the expensive funerals of the Principality. Eddie had
lain there for five years before being cremated and his ashes placed in a
common grave in the area of the cemetery called Le Jardin de Souvenir.

Entry
in the cemetery ledger of the death of Edward Cahill at Monaco in 1975

Grave No: 50 in the Piquet or more acceptably named Jacaranda area of Monaco cemetery where Edward Cahill lay for 5 years before cremation

The porcelain plaque that still lies on Edward Cahill's now empty grave in the Piquet area of Monaco cemetery

This loose plaque cannot possibly be original after all these years but by the most perfect coincidence reads in part: Here lies at rest his most beautiful song

Our family could have rented a grave for another 30
years but the cost was weepingly exorbitant. There were actually many notices on the 30
year graves advising relatives that if a further arrangement was not made the
deceased would be cremated and placed in the common grave for ash remains.

Michael Moran contemplating the final resting place of his great-uncle the Australian concert pianist Edward Cahill in the Monaco cemetery in 2010

Time's winged chariot hurrying near...

Edward Cahill seated in the front row on the left of Princess Alice at a private Mayfair piano recital at the home of the Dowager Lady Swathling 1934

The extraordinary private recordings of his playing that do survive from 1935 played on a Grotrian Steinweg instrument especially commissioned by him from the Braunschweig factory can be heard here:

Popular posts from this blog

Swiss physicist Alain Kohler said he found this 1847 photo of a daguerreotype image of Fryderyk Chopin in the private collection of a musician in Switzerland. It's believed to be only the second confirmed photographic image of the composer. (Institut Polonais Paris) [Courtesy of CBC News 20 January 2017]

Welcome to the 72nd International Chopin Festival at the lovely Polish town of Duszniki Zdrój, a charming spa in Silesia on the mountainous Czech-Polish border not far from Wrocław.

In this 72nd year of the festival, the artistic director Piotr Paleczny (his 25th anniversary in this position) has assembled a quite remarkable array of famous, musically outstanding and charismatic pianists, many of them prize-winners in international competitions. Most of the greatest pianists playing on the international stage today have appeared at Duszniki Zdroj, many at the very beginnings of their pianistic careers or shortly after winning major international competitions. 72nd. Duszniki Internati…

Welcome to the 71st International Chopin Festival at the lovely Polish town of Duszniki Zdrój, a charming spa in Silesia on the mountainous Czech-Polish border not far from Wrocław.

In this 71st year of the festival, the artistic director Piotr Paleczny has assembled a quite remarkable array of famous, musically outstanding and charismatic pianists many of them prize-winners in international competitions. Most of the greatest pianists playing on the international stage today have appeared at Duszniki Zdroj, many at the very beginnings of their pianistic careers or shortly after winning major international competitions. A modicum of 'ancient' history first. Part of the way through his studies Joseph Elsner recommended that Chopin ‘take the waters’ or 'go into rehab' not far from where Elsner was born in the small Silesian spa of Bad Reinerz (now Duszniki Zdrój). Originally on the Prussian-Bohemian frontier, the village is now in the south-west of Poland on the border wit…

And so the lead up to the IX International Paderewski Piano Competition begins in earnest for me at least when I go to Bydgoszcz on October 24th for the technical briefing. The young pianists have been preparing for months if not years.

And what is the Paderewski connection with Bydgoszcz? In 1918 the 58-year-old composer spent some time on the platform of the Bydgoszcz railway
station, walking, stretching his legs and smoking cigarettes. This is the only confirmed episode which unexpectedly turned into a huge Bydgoszcz myth becoming the
permanent brand of this city situated on the Brda river. As Paderewski was considered in a similar way to Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi in his day, this myth did not arise from the ether - there was a real basis, however tenuous, for it to grow.

I shall be giving the English Internet commentary and criticism streamed live for the comp…

Australian author and classical musician.
He seriously studied the piano and harpsichord in London for many years.
His piano teacher was Eileen Ralf, a former professor at the Royal Academy of Music and the inspiring teacher of the great Australian pianist Geoffrey Tozer.
His harpsichord teacher was Maria Boxall, editor of the keyboard works of the English Baroque composer and organist John Blow as well as a renowned Harpsichord Method.
He yearns for the South Pacific islands but through a number of unlikely events and coincidences beached up on the cold shores of the Baltic.